Hard Medicine
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single genius in possession of a large fortune, must be in want of a wife (according to the society pages).
Author's Note: A one-shot (with expansion potential) explaining how Artemis met a certain nurse. Can be read alone, but the significance of the event will be appreciated if you also read Growing Up.
This piece turned very Pride-and-Prejudice-ish, which I ran with because it amused me. It may or may not amuse you, too, but there's only one way to find out.
"Did you hear?"
Jessica set down her clipboard with a sigh. "I get the feeling I'm about to."
The blonde in the starched uniform ignored the long-suffering tone in her friend's voice. "Myles Fowl has been admitted to the hospital!"
"And you're...happy about this, Nurse Cecilia?"
"Oh, come on Jess. You must have heard of the Fowl boys."
She looked blank.
"Together they're three of the richest boys in Ireland! Myles and Beckett, twins, are numbers two and three respectively. But it's their older brother everyone's interested in."
"Let me guess," she said, picking up a stack of freshly-laundered bedsheets from the nurses' station. "Tall, dark, handsome?"
"And rich!"
"Well, that goes without saying."
"He's smart, too. Really smart. He's a triple Nobel-prize winner."
They reached the first bed and, after Cecilia escorted the elderly inhabitant to a temporary chair, unfolded the stiff sheets and began to change the bedcovers. "Sounds like he never leaves the lab."
"Even better!" Cecilia laughed as they aired the sheets.
They finished changing the bedcovers in the ward just as one of the hospital porters, a spindly man of indeterminate age, rang the bell on the nurses desk. "Patient for you." He pushed a form under Jessica's nose, and she signed it wearily.
"Well, where are they then?"
The porter turned his back on the nurse and shrugged lazily as he walked away. Jessica pursed her lips. Kilkenny General was a small hospital; a glorified clinic. Most of the staff were apathetic, to say the least.
She glanced around for a likely-looking patient. The clipboard said hed received a minor head injury and was admitted to the ward for a proper examination because Accident and Emergency were swamped. Jessica doubted this fact, as in her eight years at the hospital the most serious incident she had heard of involved a tractor and combine harvester colliding. As both vehicles were only travelling at around ten miles per hour, neither driver suffered more than a broken collarbone or two. Kilkenny General was mostly the final stopping point on the journey of life, a quiet limbo where relatives could say their last goodbyes.
Not today, though. Muddy footprints led off from where she met the porter into the communal recreation room. Two elderly men sat in plastic-coated armchairs watching a tennis match. A third man - boy, really - stood in front of the vending machine, attempting to choose between chocolates.
Gotcha.
Jessica scanned the clipboard, looking for a name to address the boy with. Her eyes fell on the barely-legible scrawl of the attending in A&E.
Oh, you've got to be kidding me.
Cecilia was going to have a field day.--
Thirty minutes later, Myles Fowl sat on the edge of a paper-covered gurney as Jessica ran through symptoms that he should watch out for. The physician had run a quick examination before dashing out for his weekly golf tournament. Finding nothing, he left the two nurses to lecture the patient on aftercare, and were waiting for a relative to pick him up so they could ensure he would be checked on in the night. Cecilia, giddy with excitement, was happily chatting to Myles as they waited; her initial disappointment at his young age - he was barely fifteen - evaporated immediately when she learnt that his brother, Artemis, was nearly twice his age.
"...straight back if you feel nauseous," Jessica finished. Myles nodded distractedly, watching an older patient in the bed opposite him. She didn't blame him. The ward often made people contemplate their own mortality.
"I'll be back soon." Gently, she left the bedside, discreetly pulling the thin curtain around the boy's bed; shielding him from the rest of the ward. In order to leave the hospital the boy's guardian - should they ever show up - needed to sign discharge papers. It would be a much quicker task to fill out the majority of the forms now and just hand them over for signing, and stop Cecilia making too much of a fool of herself in front of the richest family in Ireland.
She returned a few moments later with the forms tucked in the crook of her left arm, both her hands occupied in balancing three steaming mugs of deep-orange tea. She kicked back the curtain inelegantly, regretting her decision to draw it in the first place and set down the mugs on the bedside table, glowing with triumph.
"I don't like tea."
Jessica stared at Myles for a moment before silently turning to draw the curtain again. When she turned back to face him, her expression was perfectly composed. "That's okay. Now, I just need your help filling out some forms."
She gave the papers to him, along with a biro from her pocket. The little cubicle was silent for a while save for the sound of pen scratching against paper.
"Done," he said eventually, lazily passing the forms back to Jessica. She smiled graciously and Cecilia, who had been silent since her friend returned, turned back to the patient to renew their conversation.
"So what are your brother's Nobel prizes for?"
Myles pulled a face. It was obviously not his favourite topic of conversation. "Two in chemistry, one in physics. He's trying for a second physics one at the moment. He thinks he's on the brink of discovering how to travel faster than the speed of light." There was a distasteful sneer in his voice that suggested he thought otherwise.
Jessica coughed politely, disrupting the conversation. From the look on Myles's face, it was a welcome distraction. "So, Mister Fowl. If you don't mind me asking, why were you climbing a tree in the first place?"
The boy shrugged his broad shoulders; an answer in itself. "I was playing rugby with a few friends in the grounds. The ball got stuck in one of the oak trees and I went to get it."
Cecilia's face lit up at this statement, and she mouthed 'the grounds!' to her friend.
"It must have been a pretty big tree."
"Not really. Mam just overreacted."
"Is that Madam Fowl?" Cecilia asked. Jessica threw her a withering look.
"Why didn't she come with you to the hospital, Myles?"
Myles shrugged. "She had some guests over, and it's more of a precaution than anything else. Mam hates having her schedule interrupted."
Jessica sighed and stood up, smoothing her uniform. She would have liked to talk to Myles for longer, but could hear the hurried squeak of leather shoes on the parquet flooring. It sounded as though one of Myles's relatives had managed to find enough of a gap in their schedule to collect the injured boy. She moved round the bed to stand next to Cecilia, opposite the approaching footsteps and the new accompanying voice.
"Myles - sodding - Fowl!"
The boy in the bed, although built like a brick outhouse, visibly shrank at the angry voice behind the curtain. Before he could answer, the curtain was dragged to one side, brass rings rattling on the rail, to reveal the speaker.
"Oh, yes." Jessica whispered to her friend. "Best catch in Ireland, all right."
Artemis Fowl junior stood behind the curtain, his face bloodless and his eyes flashing. The scowl on his face, however, was dropped immediately after catching sight of the two nurses on the other side of the bed.
"I'm sorry," he said, breathing heavily through his nose. "I didn't realise anyone but my brother was here."
Cecilia laughed breezily. "That's all right, Mr. Fowl. We're big girls, we can handle it."
"Even so... ."
Myles shifted on the gurney, impatient to leave. The movement caught Artemis's attention.
"Is he all right?"
Jessica nodded. "Doctor O'Hara examined him and thinks he should be okay. He's been told what symptoms to watch out for, and if you have a moment I'd like to run through them with you, too."
Artemis waved a dismissive hand. "Nauseous headache; vomiting; double vision; slurred speech, confusion, drowsiness or loss of consciousness; blood or fluid from the ears or nose. Anything else?"
The nurse blinked, wrong-footed. "Y-yes. Hes going to need monitoring during the night -"
"Wake him up every two hours. If he's difficult or impossible to rouse, contact a medic."
"Yes. I assume I dont need to tell you he needs peace and rest?"
"Obviously."
Jessica gritted her teeth. "Then if you could just sign these discharge forms, I'll let you get going."
Artemis took the proffered papers. "Good." He muttered. "Maybe I'll only lose an hour of lab time."
Cecilia leaned in as her friend stiffened next to her. "Really? What are you working on?"
"I told you." Myles interjected. "He's trying to figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light. Dumbest idea I ever heard."
Artemis gritted his teeth as he signed the papers. "Get up, Myles. Mother's anxious to see you." He handed the forms back to Jessica, who kept her face carefully blank as Artemis mentioned Mrs. Fowl. Myles hauled himself up from the gurney with a theatrical sigh.
"Is that everything?"
Jessica nodded. "I'm sure if theres anything I've forgotten to mention, your brother knows what to do better than I do," she inclined her head toward Artemis. "Nurse Morgan will have to walk you to the exit."
"Is that necessary?" Artemis asked.
"Hospital policy, Im afraid." Jessica replied, while shooing them out of the curtained area. Artemis sighed lightly and allowed himself to be herded by Cecilia, who mouthed a 'thank you!' to her friend. Jessica was sure that by the time the younger girl returned, she would have secured herself a date with the most eligible bachelor in Ireland.
I guess I'll have to move abroad,
Reviewers get their very own Artemis to nurse their bumps and bruises. :)